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Drew laughed and looked back over, Mary’s father had ceased talking to her but now her mother was speaking to her. Miss Marlow glanced across the room, her eyes seeking Drew out.
An odd sensation leapt in his chest. He would have said it was his heart, but like Pembroke, he did not really have one. That had been kicked far too many times in his life. Her mother said something else and Miss Marlow looked away.
Drew looked at Pembroke again. Drew liked Miss Marlow. She fulfilled all that he was seeking. Yet Pembroke would never let Drew near his little sister. That thought was a punch in the gut. Another rejection, and a rejection from a man who could have no moral standing over Drew.
It was bloody tempting to pitch for Pembroke’s wife, solely to kick the man back.
If Pembroke had earned himself a wife and a second chance, than why could he not offer Drew the same?
“Stop drooling over the fair Miss Marlow, come and play cards.”
“I ought not, I ought to dance with every woman with a dowry if I am to find one fool enough to take me.”
“There is no hurry for you to choose a woman. If you need funds I’ll pay. Come and play. I am need of your company; Mark and Harry are already playing so I need another man I trust for my pair.”
“Very well.”
Drew played a few hands of cards at the tables with his friends for an hour; they did not normally attend such affairs, but Derwent’s wife was in Drew’s mother’s set, and so any young man with ill-morals had been encouraged to attend. It would end in an orgy later, but by then he and his friends would be gone. He had never been into those sorts of games.
“I am out.” He’d played for long enough.
If he wished to escape his current life, he must return to the task of looking for a new one.
“Then you must settle what you owe.”
Fortune had played against him. Drew looked at Peter who nodded as a hand moved to his pocket. Drew rose. “Good evening, gentleman.” he said to the others about the table, but then he shared a look with Peter that said I shall see you in a while. His friend smiled.
It was all well and good to have a generous wealthy friend, but how could a man respect himself when he lived off his friend like a leach, or from services rendered to the older women of society. They saw society’s untitled sons as a pack of male whores. The devil take this life. He no longer wished for it.
Of course there were lucky untitled sons, those who had fathers who paid for a commission in the army, or the clergy. Framlington would never have deemed to give Drew that. He had given Drew nothing bar his name, his food, and limited clothing, from Drew’s birth until his fifteenth birthday. Then Drew had learned a way to earn freedom from his false father’s house. Only to tie himself up in a new hell.
He should have saved the money the women gave him and paid for his commission into the army, but he’d been young, and greedy, and he’d celebrated his new wealth playing hard at the tables and buying whatever he wished. Of course then the debt had begun, and the debt had sucked him deeper into the power of his mother’s set of friends; though friends was an ambiguous word. Yet they had paid his duns for years, but never enough to fully clear his debt.
He returned to the ballroom to look for his prize – a young woman with a dowry of reasonable size, one that would clear his debt fully, and finally, and enable him to set up his life as he wished.
His eyes were immediately drawn to Miss Marlow’s dark curls, which bounced against her shoulders as she skipped through the steps of another country dance. He truly liked the girl. She’d become his preference tonight.
But he should not put all his eggs in one basket, as people said. He looked across the room at another debutante, a lady with auburn hair whom he’d danced with thrice. She was not as pleasing on the eye as Miss Marlow and yet her dowry was equally substantial.
As he passed a set, a woman was spun out of the last turn of a dance breathing hard. Her gaze met his.
Pembroke’s newly acquired wife.
She had blue eyes, but they were not as pale a blue as her sister-in-law’s.
Damn it, but he was tempted to play a game. He knew if he settled on Miss Marlow, then Pembroke would fight him all the way. Pembroke had turned his back on the life Drew led, and now treated all those who’d no choice but to live it, as if they were scum. Drew could teach Pembroke a lesson with this.
As Pembroke’s wife’s partner bowed over her hand elegantly Drew saw Pembroke speaking with Lady Elizabeth Ponsonby, Drew’s sister. She was older than Drew, older than Pembroke, and of Framlington’s blood, and she’d adopted and thoroughly enjoyed their mother’s way of life.
She was the one who had pulled Pembroke into their set on the grand tour. Pembroke had been as innocent and stupid as his little sister then. Like a baby, newly born, presented to the women in a linen cloth. Here is another young male for you to mislead.
Drew never spoke to Elizabeth. They did not acknowledge their connection.
Yet on this occasion Drew was grateful to her.
Pembroke would be occupied for a while; if Elizabeth was interested in him again she would not let him escape easily.
“Your Grace.” Drew grasped the fingers of the Duke of Pembroke’s hapless young bride as soon as her former companion walked away. The woman looked a little lost… a lost sheep… “Would you dance with me?”
She had large blue eyes, which looked her confusion.
“Oh, of course…” Just like her sister-in-law she was too polite, too innocent and naïve, to deny him.
Of all the dances, it was a waltz.
Perfect.
He took her hand and brought her close, so her breasts pressed to his chest. She stepped back.
This was going to be amusing at least, and perhaps if she was so newly innocent, if she could be persuaded, sharing a bed with her might actually be enjoyable.
He span her several times, gripping her firmly as her hold was so light it felt as though she tried not to touch him at all. “So where did you meet Pembroke?”
“I… Near Pembroke Place, Lord Framlington.”
She did know who he was then.
“Is your marriage as blissful as you hoped…” he was being sarcastic.
Her mouth opened, but she did not answer, as though she didn’t know what to say. Well there it was then. Another cold loveless society marriage that would end in shame, and sin. He did not wish it for himself. He wished for more in the marriage he sought, underneath all else, he sought loyalty too. He may have cuckolded dozens, but he did not wish for that from his wife.
Drew saw Pembroke over her shoulder, whispering with Elizabeth, already perhaps agreeing to play his poor wife false. Drew had an urge to play the same game, why should Pembroke have what Drew wished for and then treat it ill.
Besides Drew had been brought up to be wicked. He leaned to the Duchess’s ear speaking as he spun her again, toning his voice to the pitch of seduction. “Pembroke is dull. Perhaps when you tire of him you might think of me. I would be willing to warm your bed if it is cold.”
The woman snapped her head back, as though he’d slapped her, and the look on her face implied horror. “I will never tire of my husband, my Lord…”
Her rejection was an insult, another kick. He wished to be good enough for a woman like this. “But there is much to be said for variety, my dear, and your husband knows it, look, see, he’s speaking with my sister, an old flame he probably wishes to rekindle.”
She looked as he turned her, her head turning as he turned, so she could keep looking at Pembroke. When she looked back at Drew pain shone in her eyes, pain and something else… She cared for Pembroke. Truly cared. Her eyes were shimmering with tears, and she had bitten her lip to stop them falling. Her fingers clawed on his shoulder and gripped his hand a little harder as though she was saving herself from falling as much as trying to prevent her tears.
His hand, which had been seductively spread across her back to feel the movement of her body beneath her gown, now slid a little downwards, to hold her up if needs be, as they took the last few turns.
He did not know what to say.
When he looked beyond her, unable to look at her eyes filled with sparkling tears, he saw Pembroke coming. The man had disposed of Elizabeth and was crossing the room with a look of thunderclouds in his eyes, walking through the dancers for God sake.
Pembroke did not in general show his emotion. Drew had truly believed him no more movable than stone. He had thought this woman had been selected to be a future Duchess and was on the verge of a life of hell. But the look in Pembroke’s eyes, the anger, implied the man felt as much for his wife as his wife clearly felt for him. Drew had made an error in this.
Fortunately before Pembroke collided with a couple the dance came to its natural end, and when he reached them, as the last notes played, he gripped his wife’s arm, with a force that said, she is mine and no one else will touch her. Then he hissed at Drew. “I’d already made a note this evening to warn you off – I do not want you dancing with my sister – and now I see I must also warn you off my wife. Just so that you know, Framlington, hunting my sister is pointless, I would not agree the match and never pay you her dowry, and if you touch my wife again, I’ll kill you.”
Drew smiled as he stepped away from the Duchess. He wished to laugh. Well who would have known that Pembroke had a heart? And who would have known that Pembroke could make a woman fall for him so deeply.
As Drew walked away he saw Miss Marlow, Pembroke’s sister, being returned to her parents, by her latest partner. Her gaze turned to Drew, as it had earlier. He smiled and nodded slightly in recognition.
She had not heeded her brother’s and her father’s warnings.
He returned to the fake marble pillar and watched Miss Marlow. She spoke with her family as her dance partner walked away.
Several of the men in the Pembroke group had hands resting at their wives’ waists, and the couples stood close, barely inches between them. Some of them had been married for years…
The Earl of Barrington turned and said something to his wife, then kissed her lips. Barrington was Mary’s uncle on her father’s side, and Drew had heard he’d been a rake, as wicked as they came, until he’d married. Now he was never in town unless he was with his wife.
Wiltshire, another Duke, The Duke or Arundel, who was as hard-nosed as Pembroke, laughed about something, then mid-conversation he turned and looked at his wife, lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, then merely turned and continued the conversation.
Drew saw Marlow lean and say something in his wife’s ear and she looked up at him and smiled then shook her head laughing, her answer from him was a kiss on the cheek and another whisper as he gripped her fingers and then kept a hold of her hand.
They were all affectionate. Every pair. Mothers with their husbands, and the elder daughters with theirs. He was looking at a utopia. Of course it could be as false as the damned pillar he leaned against. But if it were true…
If it were true then there was no doubt about his choice. If Miss Marlow was as capable of constancy as the other woman in her family, why would he choose another?
Yet it would not be easy to win her. They would wrap her up and keep her away from him now. But he wished to be sure of this. He wanted to be confident in the fidelity of his wife, and he now wished for something new, after tonight… How could he expect a loyal wife if he did not ask the same of himself? He wished to know that he could be faithful to the wife he chose too. He knew exactly what he wanted now. He wanted what the Pembrokes had. Commitment… Exclusivity… Constancy… Even affection… perhaps…
He had made his choice, for a wife. He wished for Miss Marlow, but he would wait and not rush – to be certain. He had a little more credit he could call on, his need for her dowry was not desperate.
“Are you ready to retire?” Peter’s hand settled on Drew’s shoulder.
Drew also had a friend with generous pockets.
“Aye.” Drew straightened, looking back at his friends, Peter, Harry and Mark, his brothers… His family. “Did you fair better than I?”
“Richest of us did.” Mark quipped. “The man who does not need it.”
“I won back your losses and more.” Peter clarified. “So I say that earns us a drink and a pretty bird of paradise each.”
“I’ll take the drink, but I shall pass on the whore…”
Spending the money he’d earned from the women he now hated, on younger, prettier women of his choice, had been the way he’d balanced his soul for years, a little silent kick in the teeth of his mother’s friends. But now he was done with women until he took a wife. The thought of sleeping with a woman other than the one he’d chosen for marriage was now abhorrent.
“Then I shall have yours as well as mine.” Harry laughed.
Drew smiled at his friends, but as they walked from the ball, he glanced at Peter. The only one of them who usually attended these sorts of events with Drew. “What do you know of the Pembrokes? The sisters, and their daughters…”
* * *
Mary was sitting on her bed, with her knees bent up and gripped in her arms. Her bare toes peeped from beneath her nightgown. She watched her mother put her garments away; she’d dismissed the maid.
“Mama, why did you favour, Papa?”
She was placing Mary’s earbobs into their box. She hesitated and did not speak for a moment as though the question shocked her. Perhaps she’d guessed why Mary asked. Mary had asked because one particular gentleman’s light brown eyes had hovered in her mind all evening, along with the particular lilt of his smile.
“There you have me. Perhaps I am not a gentleman…”
No. So her brother John had told her father, and her father had told her. “Framlington is a fortune hunter. A rake. A man to avoid…”
“Remember me as I am…”
“When I met your father…” her mother sat on the bed, “our eyes met across a table and I just knew he was right for me.” She was blushing a little.
“Do you think I will know?”
“I hope you will. I hope you find a man who shall sweep you off your feet and love you with all his soul.”
“That is what I hope for too.” Lord Framlington’s eyes, his face, returned to her mind. There had been something fascinating about him. He was different to any other man who’d spoken to her.
“Did you truly enjoy the evening? You have been quiet tonight.”
Mary smiled. “I did.”
“Come along then, let me tuck you in—”
“I am too old to be tucked into bed, Mama.”
“You will never be too old. Come along.” Her mother rose.
Mary slipped off the bed, then lifted the sheet and slid beneath it. She plumped the pillow with a thump before she lay down her head.
Her mother leaned down and kissed her cheek, then tucked the sheet in beneath the mattress so the sheet was tight about Mary. “Sleep well…”
“Would you give Papa a kiss from me?”
Her mother smiled. “I love you, Mary.” She bent and pressed another kiss on Mary’s cheek, then her cold fingertips touched Mary’s cheek too.
“I love you too, Mama.”
Mary’s mother walked across the room and extinguished the candles in the candelabrum before turning to collect a single candlestick. Then she walked to the door. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Her mother turned once more as she opened it. “Sleep well.”
Mary smiled, and then her mother left and closed the door. The light disappeared with her.
Mary saw Lord Framlington in the darkness, as he stood against a marble pillar, watching her across the room. She ought to feel nothing for him. She ought to never think of him again. He had been courting her dowry, nothing more.
Yet there had been something about him.
I like and admire you, Miss Marlow… She had felt the same. There had been something calling her towards him.
